Technonationalism and Technology Management for Building a Rich Nation and a Strong Military
-
Upload
roger-posadas -
Category
Documents
-
view
218 -
download
0
Transcript of Technonationalism and Technology Management for Building a Rich Nation and a Strong Military
-
7/30/2019 Technonationalism and Technology Management for Building a Rich Nation and a Strong Military
1/31
1
TECHNONATIONALISM AND TECHNOLOGY MANAGEMENT
FOR BUILDING A RICH NATION AND A STRONG MILITARY*
by
Roger D. Posadas, Ph.D.**
1. INTRODUCTION
Good morning, distinguished officers and personnel, ladies and gentlemen of the
Philippine Navy and other branches of the AFP. I would like to express my
appreciation to the Philippine Navy through its Center for Naval Leadership and
Excellence for inviting to give a talk during the Ninth Leg of the Philippine Navys
Governance Forum Series. It is truly a distinct honor and privilege to be able to talk
to some of the top brass of the AFP on an advocacy that I have been writing and
lecturing about for thirty years now the need for technonationalism and technology
management for building a rich Philippine nation and a strong Armed Forces of the
Philippines.
_____________________________________________
* Invited talk delivered on 09 November 2012 for the Ninth Leg of the Philippine Navy
Governance Forum Series under the auspices of the Center for Naval Leadership and Excellence,
Philippine Navy.
** Professor of Technology Management, Technology Management Center, University of the
Philippines-Diliman, Quezon City.
-
7/30/2019 Technonationalism and Technology Management for Building a Rich Nation and a Strong Military
2/31
2
It has become a consensus that the Philippines was second only to Japan in East
Asia in industrial, technological, and economic development in the 1950s. Since
then, however, the Philippines has been overtaken by its neighbors in East Asia with
the exception of Vietnam, Myanmar, Laos, and Cambodia.
So why has the Philippines been left behind by its East Asian neighbors? Why
has the country remained underdeveloped scientifically, technologically,
economically, and militarily? Why has it failed to become a newly industrialized
country like South Korea, Taiwan, and China up to now? Why has the Philippines
ended up as a poor nation with a weak military? Is it because our country has been
implementing protectionist, nationalist policies for too long and has failed to adopt
open, liberal policies soon enough, as most mainstream liberal economists have been
declaring? Or is it because our country has failed to emulate the East Asian model of
technonationalist catch-up industrialization as exemplified by the economic miracles
of Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and China?
In this talk I will try to explain why the Philippines has remained backward and
dependent scientifically, technologically, economically, and militarily up to now and
what must be done to enable our country to catch up scientifically, technologically,
economically, and militarily. Section 2 first gives a brief overview of the extent to
which the Philippines has been left behind in terms of per capita GDP from 1950 to
2008. Then Section 3 presents an updated review of the weak and dependent state of
Philippine technological capabilities. Next Section 4 traces the colonial-cultural
roots of Philippine underdevelopment by contrasting Filipino attitude toward
Western technology with Japanese and other East Asian attitudes. Then Section 5
discusses how Philippine underdevelopment has been given economic ideological
reinforcement by the liberal economic ideology and technoliberal thinking that have
-
7/30/2019 Technonationalism and Technology Management for Building a Rich Nation and a Strong Military
3/31
3
held sway in our country since 1986. Section 6then discusses how the technoliberal
policies of successive Philippine governments have entrapped our economy in a
vicious circle of technological laggardness and dependence. Then Section 7
proposes a way out of this vicious circle through the pursuit of a "technonationalist,
catch-up oriented", and "capability-based approach that draws from the
successful national catch-up experiences of East Asian newly industrialized
countries and seeks to achieve rapid national economic and technological catch-up
for the purpose of transforming our country into a rich nation with a strong military.
Next Section 8 explains how this technonationalist approach can be successfully
implemented through the use oftechnology management. Finally, Section 9 will
close my talk with some concluding remarks.
2. Overview of the Extent to Which the Philippines Has Been Left Behind
Based on GDP per capita (PPP dollars), the Philippines was actually No. 4 in
1950 among East Asian countries, ranking below Singapore, Japan, and Malaysia as
shown in Table 1. Nevertheless, in 1950 the per capita GDP of the Philippines was
slightly higher than those of South Korea and Taiwan, about 1.5 times those of
Thailand and Indonesia, and more than 2.5 times that of China.
The Philippines, however, was overtaken by Taiwan in 1960, by South Korea
in late 1960s, by Thailand in the early 1980s, by Indonesia in the late 1990s, and by
China in 2000, and it is about to be overtaken in the next five years by Vietnam as
indicated in Table 1 and shown dramatically in Figure 1.
These facts and figures cannot be disputed; they imply very clearly that there is
something drastically wrong with the development strategies and economic
policies of the Philippine government. Since there is now a consensus that
-
7/30/2019 Technonationalism and Technology Management for Building a Rich Nation and a Strong Military
4/31
4
economic development is a catch-up process and that catching up requires building
up technological capabilities, it follows that the Philippine economy has been left
behind because it has failed to upgrade its technological capabilities to globally
competitive standards. So we now examine the technological capabilities of the
Philippines.
TABLE 1: THE GROWTH IN GDP PER CAPITA BY PPP$ OF THEPHILIPPINES AND OF ITS NEIGHBORS
2,5761,577894660641696579Vietnam
3,2792,5982,3862,5491,8931,5841,149Philippines
3,7082,7152,0971,549986834704Indonesia
5,5202,5641,465868665592418China
7,7765,5784,0392,2271,477940712Thailand
12,79410,1616,3864,5502,5871,9041,940Malaysia
23,82417,54310,7395,0762,6741,5131,054Korea, Rep.
28,56023,09413,3616,9953,3001,6791,064Taiwan
31,82328,55925,87018,48813,3755,4892,645Japan
45,29536,83523,14314,1046,9943,4263,533Singapore
2008200019901980197019601950Country
Source: Gapminder(2010)
3. Overview of Philippine Technological Capabilities
The extent of technological development of a firm, industry, or country can be
gauged in terms of two dimensions:
-
7/30/2019 Technonationalism and Technology Management for Building a Rich Nation and a Strong Military
5/31
5
1. Technological Capability -- the level of technological skills and know-how
of a firm, industry, or country
2. Technological Sophistication measure of proximity to the state-of the-art
of the key technologies being used by a firm, industry, or country.
0
5000
10000
15000
20000
25000
30000
1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2008
Taiwan
Korea, Rep.
Malaysia
ThailandChina
Indonesia
Philippines
Vietnam
Figure 1Graph of the Growth in GDP per Capita by PPP$
of the Philippines and of its Neighbors
The most important gauge of a firm's, industry's, or country's level of technolo-
gical competitiveness is its level of technological capability. Depending on what
it is capable of doing with products and processes, a firm's technological capability
can be identified with one of the rungs in the following ladder of technological
capabilities from the lowest to the highest level:
-
7/30/2019 Technonationalism and Technology Management for Building a Rich Nation and a Strong Military
6/31
6
Acquisitional Capabilitythe ability to assess, select, and acquire appro-
priate technologies from external sources.
Operative Capability the ability to implement, operationalize, and repairan externally acquired technology.
Adaptive Capability the ability to adapt an external technology to local
conditions through the modification of its scale, capacity, inputs, and peri-
pheral components.
Integrative or Investment Capability the ability to assemble a complextechnological system or commission a production facility on a self-reliant
basis.
Duplicative Capability the ability to reverse engineer and make a dupli-
cate of an externally acquired product or process technology.
Improved-Design Capability the ability to improve the design of anexisting product in terms of performance, architecture, or aesthetics without
changing the existing technology.
Reproductive Capability the ability to reproduce the core component(s)
of an externally acquired product technology.
Innovative Capability the ability to design and commercialize an
incremental but significant improvement of the core or basic technology of
an existing product or process.
-
7/30/2019 Technonationalism and Technology Management for Building a Rich Nation and a Strong Military
7/31
7
Creative Capability the ability to create a radically novel, breakthrough
technology through endogenous research and development and to
commercialize it into a new-to-the-world product or process.
On the other hand, the levels of technological sophistication can becategorized roughly into
1. First-Wave Technologies the pre-industrial, craft or artisan technologies
which are based on empirical know-how rather than scientific knowledge
2. Second-Wave Technologies the industrial technologies which are based onthe classical scientific knowledge of the bulk or macroscopic properties,
structures, behaviors, and interactions of matter.
3. Third-Wave Technologies the post-industrial or high technologies which are
based on the latest scientific knowledge of the structure, properties, behaviors, and
interactions of molecules, atoms, nuclei, and fundamental particles.
Examples of these three broad levels of technological sophistication for various types
of technologies are shown in Table 2.
-
7/30/2019 Technonationalism and Technology Management for Building a Rich Nation and a Strong Military
8/31
8
TYPES OFTECHNOLOGY
FIRST WAVETECHNOLOGIES
SECOND WAVETECHNOLOGIES
THIRD WAVETECHNOLOGIES
MATERIALSTECHNOLOGIES
Copper, Bronze,Iron, Ceramic
Steel, Aluminum,Petrochemicals
Semiconductors,Composites
INSTRUMENT
TECHNOLOGIES
Plow, Saw, Spinning
Wheel
Engines, Motors,
Machine Tools
Lasers, Robots,
MicromachinesENERGYTECHNOLOGIES
Firewood, Watermill,Windmill
Steam Engine,Turbogenerator
Photovoltaics, NuclearFusion
INFORMATIONTECHNOLOGIES
Printing Press,Pens, Books
Typewriter, Radio,Telephone, TV
Computers, Internet,Mobile Phone
MEDICALTECHNOLOGIES
Traditional Medicine,Herbal Medicine
Immunization, ModernSurgery
MRI, Biotech Medicine,Smart Drugs
AGRICULTURALTECHNOLOGIES
TraditionalAgriculture
Mechanized Agriculture,Green Revolution
Biotech Agriculture,Precision Smart Farming
MANUFACTURINGTECHNOLOGIES
Craft-Based and
Guild Manufacturing
Factory-Based, Mass
Production
CAD/CAE/CAM, FMS
Robotic FactoriesMILITARYTECHNOLOGIES
Sword-and-Shield,Bow-and-Arrow
Guns and ExplosivesTanks and Airplanes
Space Wars, ElectronicBattlefield
Table 2. Examples of Levels of Technology
Our countrys level of technological capabilities can be gauged roughly fromour economys exports and imports:
The Philippines exports mostly low value added products such as garments;
assembled integrated circuits or ICs; fashion accessories; gifts, toys, and
houseware; fresh and processed fruits; tuna, shrimp, and seaweed; furniture;
and low-end software; and contract workers.
Our country, in turn, imports high-tech products such as power-generating
machineries, specialized machines, heavy equipment, transport engines and
equipment, telecommunications equipment, computing equipment, machine
tools, chemicals, bulk pharmaceuticals, IC wafers, etc.
-
7/30/2019 Technonationalism and Technology Management for Building a Rich Nation and a Strong Military
9/31
9
Although the Philippines today is one of the major exporters of high technology
products (principally, electronic products) from the developing world, it is a well
known fact that it is able to achieve this high electronic export performance by
importing the core components (the IC wafers) and other raw materials from
abroad and then assembling them into finished electronic products with the use of
cheap labor but with very little value added (Mani, 2002; Salazar, 1998).
Based on the personal observations and assessments of Posadas and Roque
(1994), Philippine domestic firms, except for a handful, have not been able to
develop technological capabilities beyond the adaptive levels with respect to
foreign-sourced technologies that range from mature to declining. In general,
domestic firms acquire the technologies they need through licensing, joint ventures,
turnkey projects, and other modes of international technology transfer and simply
implement these foreign technologies without attempting to reverse engineer these
technologies, master them, and improve them.
Since none has reached duplicative and higher technological capabilities
(except for one or two), almost all Philippine domestic firms have remained mere
technology importers, consumers, and users that are highly dependent on the
acquisition of foreign technologies to meet their technical needs.
As a consequence, the Philippine economy has remained a mere importer and
consumer of industrial and high technologies and has not yet learned to become a
producer and exporter of advanced technologies. Philippine technological
capabilities are still largely backward and dependent, being mostly adaptive
relative to industrial 20th century technologies, and merely theoretical or at most
operative relative to 21st century high technologies.
-
7/30/2019 Technonationalism and Technology Management for Building a Rich Nation and a Strong Military
10/31
10
An egregious yet typical example of the weak and dependent technological
capabilities found in almost all Filipino-owned firms is the National Power
Corporation (NPC or NAPOCOR), which has remained at the operative level in
electric power generating capabilities since 1972 due to this company's continuing
dependence on foreign firms for the design and construction of power plants. In
stark contrast, its South Korean counterpart, KEPCO, has successfully attained
innovative capabilities and global competitiveness in electric power generation
technologies, including nuclear power technology.
Another glaring example of Philippine technological weakness is the jeepney
which some Filipinos like to claim as the embodiment of Filipino ingenuity but
which to me exemplifies Filipino inability to achieve self-reliance in designing and
manufacturing an internal combustion engine a hundred-year old technology that
Koreans, Malaysians, and Chinese have learned to design and produce on their
own.
Thus, the Philippine economy can be characterized as
having very low levels of technological capabilities;
being highly dependent on the importation of technologies though various
modes of international technology transfer from technology purchase, licensing,
subcontracting, turnkey projects, joint ventures, and foreign direct investments;
having no motive or effort to learn and master the imported technologies or to
move up the ladder of technological capabilities;
being averse to local technology sourcing or technology transfers from
domestic R&D laboratories;
-
7/30/2019 Technonationalism and Technology Management for Building a Rich Nation and a Strong Military
11/31
11
lacking competence in technology management and making do with poor
product and process technologies; and
lacking technology-based global competitiveness.
4. Colonial Cultural Roots of Philippine Underdevelopment
One of the major differencesbetween East Asians (i.e., Japanese, Koreans,
Taiwanese, and Chinese) and Filipinos is their contrasting attitudes towards
Western technology and their own national culture.
After U.S. Commodore Perry had forced Japan in 1853 to open its doors to
foreign trade by demonstrating the superiority of Western (military) technology,
some Japanese samurai decided to overthrow the feudal Tokugawa Shogunate and
replace it with a modernizing Emperorled regime that could industrialize Japan
and enable it to catch up with the US and European powers economically,
technologically, and militarily. So when they succeeded in putting the young
Emperor Meiji on the throne in 1868, they immediately carried out an
industrialization program under the basic formula of Japanese Spirit, Western
Technology, that is, upholding Japanese values, culture, and nationalism while
mastering and leapfrogging Western technologies. Later this formula was directed
towards the specific twin goals of building a Rich Nation, Strong Army. This
motto -- Rich Nation, Strong Army which was the inspiration for the title ofthis talk, was also the title of a book by Richard J. Samuels (1996) that tells the
story of how the Meiji regime was able to achieve industrial and technological
catch-up by 1903 such that in the 1904-1905 Russo-Japanese War the Japanese
imperial navy and army, using Japanese-built battleships and warships and
-
7/30/2019 Technonationalism and Technology Management for Building a Rich Nation and a Strong Military
12/31
12
weapons, were able to defeat the Russian armed forces. Rich Nation, Strong
Army was a simple yet powerful motto that was based on the recognition by
Japans Meiji leaders that the West was strong because their industry, science, and
technology produced weapons that Japan and other Asian countries did not have.
From the 1960s onwards this successful Japanese model of nationalist industrial
and technological catch-up would become the inspiration for the successful
industrialization efforts of other East Asian countries like South Korea, Taiwan,
China, and Malaysia. These newly industrialized countries (NICs) basically
followed the Japanese formula of Asian Spirit, Western Technology and
pursued the Japanese motto of Rich Nation, Strong Army. In other words,
they upheld nationalist values in order to master, catch up on, and leapfrog
Western technologies for the purpose of building a rich economy and a strong
military.
In contrast, after the Filipino revolutionaries were defeated in the 1898-1901
Philippine-American War due mainly to the superiority of US military technology,
our grandfathers and great grandfathers did not follow the Japanese formula of
Filipino Spirit, Western Technology. Instead, they adopted the reverse formula
of Western Spirit, Filipino Technology, that is, they opted to emulate Western
values and culture, imbibed a colonial mentality, neglected to master Western
technologies, kept a low level of technological capability, and continued to be
mere importers and users of technology. And so unlike our successful East Asian
neighbors, we Filipinos continue to have low levels of scientific and technological
capabilities and we ended up with a poor nation and a weak military that can be
bullied by other nations.
-
7/30/2019 Technonationalism and Technology Management for Building a Rich Nation and a Strong Military
13/31
13
5. The Economic Ideological Reinforcement of Philippine Underdevelopment
The economic and technological backwardness and dependence of the
Philippines are also being reinforced and perpetuated by the economic ideology of
liberalism, which is being propagated and taught by the countrys mainstream
economists, practiced by most local businessmen, and implemented by successive
Philippine governments since 1986.
Liberalism refers to the economic ideology that advocates laissez faire, free
trade, free markets, free enterprise, a minimal role for the state in the economy,
privatization and deregulation, and comprises the neoclassical economic theories
of Adam Smith, David Ricardo, Friedrich Hayek, and Milton Friedmann. After
the establishment of the Bretton Woods institutions (the IMF and the World
Bank), GATT, and the World Trade Organization, liberalism came to be known
as neoliberalism and since the 1990s became synonymous with the so called
Washington Consensus, i.e., the economic policy consensus and prescriptions
of the IMF, the World Bank, and the U.S. Treasury which are located in
Washington, D.C.
Liberalism holds that the solution to the underdevelopment of our countrys
economy and technology is to make all economic, business, and technology
decisions conform to market needs, problems, and opportunities and to the
"principle of comparative advantage." The latter principle holds that a firm,
industry, or country should specialize on production technologies and systems that
can make maximum use of its current endowments or its comparative advantage.
The application of this neoclassical economic principle of comparative
advantage to the selection, acquisition, and exploitation of technology is called
-
7/30/2019 Technonationalism and Technology Management for Building a Rich Nation and a Strong Military
14/31
14
technoliberalism which holds that a firm should not design and produce its own
technology if it does not have the comparative advantage to do so or, in other
words, if it is easier and more cost-effective to buy or lease the technology.
Thus, technoliberalism is the economic reason behind the NPCs unwillingness
to design and produce its own power plants, turbines, and generators and its
continuing addiction to the importation of power plants and power equipment
through turnkey projects. Technoliberalism is the reason why most Filipino-owned
firms have remained technologically backward and dependent, have continued to
be mere users and importers of foreign technology, and have not attained
technological capabilities beyond adaptive levels.
It is technoliberalism that has been preventing our economy from
industrializing, keeping our economy stagnant and dependent on OFW remittances,
allowing our neighbors overtake us in terms of GDP per capita, and perpetuating
the AFPs laggardness in military technology and dependence on old, hand-me-
down weapons and equipment from the U.S. military
Neoliberalism and technoliberalism are flawed ideologies that are refuted by
the fact that their adoption by successive Philippine governments since 1986 has
kept our economy and technology underdeveloped while their rejection by Japan,
South Korea, Taiwan, China, and Malaysia enabled these countries to achieve
rapid industrial, technological, and economic catch-up. In fact, these late
industrializing countries deliberately defied the principles of comparative
advantage to create globally competitive industries in steel-making, shipbuilding,
transport vehicles, IC fabrication, mobile communications, machine tools, heavy
equipment, power generation, etc.
-
7/30/2019 Technonationalism and Technology Management for Building a Rich Nation and a Strong Military
15/31
15
Although Dr. Bernardo Villegas (2009), one of the most vocal advocates of
liberalism in the Philippines, has recently blamed our countrys continuing
underdevelopment on the anti-market, protectionist, import-substituting policies
adopted by the government since 1945, the fact is that liberalism has been the
dominant economic ideology of our country for the past 27 years which was also
the period when we were overtaken by Thailand, Indonesia, and China.
In the past five years, the ideological hegemony of neoliberalism itself has been
undermined by the consensus, among critics and proponents alike [such as J.
Stiglitz (2004), D. Rodrik (2006), and S. Radosevic (2009)], that the Washington
Consensus is a failed recipe for economic development. In fact, development
economists are now working out a post-Washington Consensus that appears to be
more open to the emerging alternative economic paradigm known as innovation
economics.
6. The Vicious Circle of Technological Laggardness and Dependence
The adoption of technoliberalism has made our national economy dependent
on the import of foreign technologies and effectively eliminated demand for
domestically created technologies. This almost zero demand in turn has reduced
pressure on the government and industry to make substantial investments in the
national development of science and technology or S&T. This underinvestment in
S&T in turn has rendered local S&T underdeveloped and incapable of meeting the
technological needs of local industry. And this local technological incapability in
turn has reinforced the dependence on technology importation, resulting in a
vicious circle of S&T and economic underdevelopment and dependence, as
depicted in Figure 2 and Figure 3.
-
7/30/2019 Technonationalism and Technology Management for Building a Rich Nation and a Strong Military
16/31
16
WEAK S&T
RESOURCES &
CAPABILITIES
CONTINUING
TECHNOLOGICAL
DEPENDENCE
WEAK EFFECTIVE
DEMAND FOR
LOCAL S&T
LOW LEVEL OF
PUBLIC & PRIVATE
SUPPORT FOR S&T
FIGURE 2. MACRO VIEW OF THE VICIOUS CIRCLE OF PHILIPPINE
S&T AND ECONOMIC UNDERDEVELOPMENT AND DEPENDENCE
-
7/30/2019 Technonationalism and Technology Management for Building a Rich Nation and a Strong Military
17/31
17
LOCAL FIRMS LACK OF
DRIVE TO CONDUCT MOT,
R&D AND TECHNOLO-
GICAL INNOVATION
LOCAL FIRMS BACK-
WARD TECHNOLOGIES
AND WEAK TECHNO-
LOGICAL CAPABILITIES
LOCAL FIRMS
IMPORTATION OF
TECHNOLOGIES
FROM ABROAD
LOCAL FIRMS INABIL-
ITY OR UNWILLING-
NESS TO MASTERTHE IMPORTED
TECHNOLOGIES
LOCAL FIRMS CONTI-
NUING ADDICTION TO
THE IMPORTATION
OF MATURE
TECHNOLOGIES
LOCAL FIRMS
LACK OF GLOBAL
TECHNOLOGY-BASED
COMPETITIVENESS
LOCAL FIRMS
SATISFACTION WITH
DOING BUSINESS IN THE
DOMESTIC MARKET
LOCAL FIRMS LACK OF
DRIVE TO UPGRADE ITS
TECHNOLOGIES TOGLOBAL STANDARDS
FIGURE 3. MICRO VIEW OF THE VICIOUS CIRCLE OF PHILIPPINE
S&T AND ECONOMIC UNDERDEVELOPMENT AND DEPENDENCE
This vicious circle is the basic central problem of the Philippines that has
perpetuated the underdevelopment and dependence of our country's economy and
S&T system. It explains why Filipino-owned firms like NAPOCOR have remained
dependent on technology importation up to now, why the Philippines has failed to
-
7/30/2019 Technonationalism and Technology Management for Building a Rich Nation and a Strong Military
18/31
18
industrialize and catch up, why the AFP has lagged behind its counterparts in Asia
in modernization, and why many of our neighboring countries have overtaken us.
With the identification of our country's basic central problem, its solution
becomes obvious. What needs to be done is to cut this vicious circle of S&T and
economic laggardness and dependence and to replace it with a virtuous circle of
S&T and economic innovativeness and competitiveness geared towards rapid
national economic and S&T catch-up and even leapfrog in certain sectors. To
achieve this, our national government will have to discard the failed and
discredited economic ideologies of neoliberalism and technoliberalism and adopt
an alternative approach which I will explain in the next section.
7. The Technonationalist, Catch-up Oriented, Capability-Based Approach
What I have been advocating for the past twenty-five years as an alternative to
the prevailing neoliberal and technoliberal approaches is the technonationalist,
catch-up oriented, capability-based approach that makes use of the precepts of
the successful East Asian models of industrial and technological catch-up and
development or what has been called the East Asian Consensus.
It is based on what has been called "technonationalism" which holds that
long-term strategic national interests should take precedence over short-term
comparative advantages on matters involving technology selection, acquisition,
and exploitation, that achieving technological self-reliance in strategic technologies
is a matter of national security, and that building up a countrys scientific and
technological capabilities to the highest world-class levels is a national imperative
for building a rich nation and a strong military. The essence oftechnonationalism
-
7/30/2019 Technonationalism and Technology Management for Building a Rich Nation and a Strong Military
19/31
19
can be captured in the formula, Nationalist Culture, Advanced Technology,
which is adapted from the Meiji formula of Japanese Spirit, Western
Technology and which would seek to acquire, learn, master, and leapfrog the
latest technologies in order to advance national goals and interests.
This alternative approach is also catch-up oriented because it aims to
achieve rapid industrial, S&T, and economic catch-up, if not leapfrogging, in
certain selected sectors of the economy through the adoption of a development
strategy of cluster-based industrialization. This strategy would identify appropriate
industries to be created in every district of the country and then develop these
selected industries into globally competitive industrial clusters. The industrial
clusters to be developed could range from shipbuilding clusters, electric vehicle
clusters, gun making clusters, aerospace clusters, materials clusters, heavy
equipment clusters, machine tool clusters, electrical equipment clusters, furniture
clusters, pharmaceutical clusters, cutflower clusters, food processing clusters,
appliances clusters, nanotechnology clusters, information technology clusters, etc.
The approach is also capability-based because it is based on the rapid
development of the technological capabilities of Filipino-owned firms to global
competitiveness and the build up of the country's scientific capabilities to world-
class levels of excellence.
Moreover, it follows more or less the East Asian Consensus or what Lee
and Mathews (2009) prefer to call the BeST Consensus, after Beijing, Seoul,
and Tokyo the set of industrial catch-up precepts that has enabled East Asian
countries to achieve rapid industrialization, technological catch-up, and economic
progress or what has been called "The East Asian Miracle".
-
7/30/2019 Technonationalism and Technology Management for Building a Rich Nation and a Strong Military
20/31
20
As expounded by Lee and Mathews (2009), the basic components of the East
Asian Consensus are
A.Creating the two principal agents of economic growth
1. Creating firms and building their capabilities (e.g., family-owned
conglomerates or chaebols like Samsung in South Korea or government
spin-out companies like Lenovo of China and Taiwan Semiconductor
Manufacturing Company of Taiwan)
2. Creating and relying upon the pilot or coordinating State agencies to
guide industrialization (e.g., MITI in Japan, Economic Planning Board
in South Korea, Central Economic Planning Board in Taiwan, and
National Development and Reform Commission in China)
B.Setting into motion the process of capability enhancement
3. Arranging firms to access and leverage advanced knowledge through
various modes of international technology transfer
4. Promoting export-based engagement with the global economy to disci-
pline firms and expand markets
5.
Targeting industries/technologies for (initially import-substituting) deve-
lopment
6. Sequential upgrading of the leading sectors and activities to secure
dynamic comparative advantages
-
7/30/2019 Technonationalism and Technology Management for Building a Rich Nation and a Strong Military
21/31
21
C.Creating an economic environment in which capability development will
proceed
7. Building broad-based education, from primary education to tertiary
education
8. Creating a financial system that is catch-up friendly but cautious about
external financial liberalization
9. Establishing stable macroeconomic settings
10. Gradual phasing out of non-market interventions
8. The Nature and Importance of Technology Management
While technonationalism will serve as the basic strategy and principle for
attaining the twin national goals of a rich nation and a strong military, the
precepts, methods, and techniques of technology management will be needed to
implement the technonationalist program.
Although the formal recognition of technology management (or management
of technology) as a distinct field of management came about only in the last 25
years, the practice of technology management at the firm and national levels has
long been pursued as far back as the Industrial Revolution in the mid-18th
century.
In Asia, the Japanese have been using technology management competently and
effectively in their successful drive towards industrialization and technological
catch-up since the Meiji Restoration in 1868. Then following this Japanese model
of technology management, the Koreans and Taiwanese succeeded in
-
7/30/2019 Technonationalism and Technology Management for Building a Rich Nation and a Strong Military
22/31
22
industrializing their economies, becoming export tigers, and attaining catch-up
competitiveness within 30 years.
Technology can be defined in a narrow sense as "the engineering knowledge
needed to create and produce a new product or process"or in a broader sense as
"the means for accomplishing a specific task". In terms of Michael Porter's value-
chain model of a firm (Porter 1985), we can define a firm's or organizations
technologies as the ways in which it performs its value-chain activities, as
depicted in Figure 4 and Figure 5.
Figure 4: Michael Porters Value-Chain Model of a Firm
FIRM INFRASTRUCTURE
HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
TECHNOLOGY DEVELOPMENT
PROCUREMENT
INBOUND
LOGISTICS
OPERATIONS OUTBOUND
LOGISTICS
MARKETING
AND SALESSERVICE
PRIMARY ACTIVITIES
SUPPORT
ACTIVITIES
MARGIN
MARGIN
-
7/30/2019 Technonationalism and Technology Management for Building a Rich Nation and a Strong Military
23/31
23
Figure 5: Representative Technologies in a Firms Value Chain
It is clear, therefore, that technology, broadly defined, pervades all the
activities of a firm or organization. And so a firm or organization can create
competitive advantages for itself --- whether in terms of lower costs through the
use of better process technologies or of distinct and better products through the
use of better product technologies --- by making appropriate technological
decisions for each value-chain activity as to the selection, sourcing, acquisition,
Information System TechnologyPlanning and Budgeting Technology
Office Technology
Training Technology
Motivation ResearchInformation Systems Technology
Product Technology Software Development Tools
Computer-aided Design Information Systems TechnologyPilot Plant Technology
Information System Technology
Communication System TechnologyTransportation System Technology
TransportationTechnology
Material HandlingTechnology
Storage & Preservation
Technology
Communication SystemTechnology
Testing Technology
Information System
Technology
Basic ProcessTechnology
Materials Technology
Machine ToolTechnology
Material Handling
Technology
Packaging Technology
Maintenance Methods
Testing Technology
Building Design/
Operation Technology
Information SystemTechnology
TransportationTechnology
Material HandlingTechnology
Packaging Technology
Communication System
Technology
Information SystemTechnology
Media Technology
Audio & Video
Recording Technology
Communication SystemTechnology
Information System
Technology
Diagnostic and TestingTechnology
Communication SystemTechnology
Information System
Technology
INBOUND
LOGISTICS
OPERATIONS OUTBOUND
LOGISTICS
MARKETING AND
SALES SERVICE
FIRM
INFRASTRUC-
TURE
HUMAN
RESOURCES
MANAGEMENT
TECHNOLOGY
DEVELOPMENT
PROCUREMENT
MARGIN
MARGIN
-
7/30/2019 Technonationalism and Technology Management for Building a Rich Nation and a Strong Military
24/31
24
generation, exploitation, assimilation, improvement, or abandonment of
technology. The integrated and consolidated set of technology decisions for all of
the firm's or organizations value-chain activities will constitute the firm's or
organizations technology strategy.
Technology management at the level of a firm or organization can now be
defined as the strategic formulation and operational implementation of a
technology strategy that informs, and conforms with, the firm's or organizations
competitive strategy.
Technology management can be pursued through an exogenous innovation
cycle from the acquisition to the learning and mastery of an externally sourced
technology or through an endogenous innovation cycle from in-house research
and development (R&D) to technology commercialization or through a judicious
combination of these two approaches as depicted in Figure 6.
If we define a firm's competitiveness as its ability to get customers to choose
its product(s) or service(s) over competing alternatives on a sustainable basis,
then it is obvious that technology management is strategically important to
competitiveness for it can improve the firm's product technology (i.e., the design
of novel or better products) or its process technology (i.e., the efficient
production of products).
The first step in technology management is the technology audit of a firm or
organization, i.e., the assessment of the firm's or organizations strengths and
weaknesses for each of its technologies in terms of two measures: (1) the specific
technologys level oftechnological sophistication or the extent of its proximity
to the technological frontier or state-of-the-art; and (2) the firms or
-
7/30/2019 Technonationalism and Technology Management for Building a Rich Nation and a Strong Military
25/31
25
organizations level oftechnological capability or the extent of its technological
mastery relative to that specific technology.
Figure 3: Technology Management Framework in Terms of anEndogenous Innovation Cycle or an Exogenous Innovation Cycle
The first step in technology management is the technology audit of a firm or
Figure 6: Technology Management Framework in Terms of anEndogenous Innovation Cycle or an Exogenous Innovation Cycle
-
7/30/2019 Technonationalism and Technology Management for Building a Rich Nation and a Strong Military
26/31
26
Technological catch-up by a firm in a particular technology is the attainment
of innovative to creative levels of technological capabilities in the technology
through a process of technological learning, assimilation, and mastery from
behind-the-technology-frontier. Catch-up competitiveness can be defined
as the ability of a firm to catch-up technologically with the worlds technology
leaders and to compete in international markets. As explained by the Asian
Development Bank (2003), catch-up competitiveness is based on behind the
frontier innovations, involving constant improvements to process and products
(and their interfaces), supported by various kinds of technical and engineering
capabilities [and it] depends on entrepreneurship and educational provision, as
well as market-friendly institutions and sound macroeconomic management.
We can also use the term catch-up technology management to refer to a
firms effective selection, acquisition, development, exploitation, learning, and
mastery of the technologies needed to catch-up with the worlds technology
leaders in its chosen industry. In short, catch-up technology management is
technology management geared and oriented toward technological catch-up and
global competitiveness.
At the national or governmental level, technology management has been
defined by Khalil (2000) as
A field of knowledge concerned with the setting and implementation of
policies to deal with technological development and utilization, and the
impact of technology on society, organizations, individuals and nature.
It aims to stimulate innovation, create economic growth, and to foster
responsible use of technology for the benefit of humankind.
-
7/30/2019 Technonationalism and Technology Management for Building a Rich Nation and a Strong Military
27/31
27
Thus, national technology management is concerned with the formulation and
implementation of national science and technology strategies, policies, plans,
roadmaps, and programs.
In the Philippines, I had for many years wanted to find a way, a medium for
advocating and propagating the concepts, principles, and methods of
technonationalism and technology management among Filipino businessmen,
managers, and government officials so that a new generation of technonationalist
managers, administrators, and policy-makers could be developed to counter the
prevailing economic ideologies of liberalism and technoliberalism.
In February 1995 I succeeded in pioneering the institutionalization of
technology management when I was able to get the U.P. Board of Regents to
approve the establishment of the Technology Management Center (TMC) in U.P.
Diliman. Since June 1996, TMC has been offering the countrys first and only
Master of Technology Management Program and admitting more than 60
students every year from various industries including the pharmaceutical,
information and communications technology, banking, fastfood, food processing,
electronics, transportation, energy, agriculture, etc. Since 1998, TMC has already
produced around 300 MTM graduates. Several of our MTM alumni are from the
Philippine Army and the Philippine Air Force.
I hope that the Philippine Navy will also send some of its officers to the TMC
in UP Diliman to get a Master in Technology Management. I also hope that the
Philippine Navy will establish its own Office of Naval Technology Management
which will be responsible for carrying out technology audit, technology
benchmarking, technology intelligence, technology foresight, technology
-
7/30/2019 Technonationalism and Technology Management for Building a Rich Nation and a Strong Military
28/31
28
assessment. technology acquisition, and technology implementation for the
Philippine navys modernization program.
9. Conclusion
I will now close my talk by giving some concluding remarks that are centered
on the formula, Filipino Nationalism, Advanced Technology, which is an
adaptation of the Japanese Meiji formula of Japanese Spirit, Western
Technology.
If we just focus on the first part of the formula (Filipino Nationalism) and
ignore the second part (Advanced Technology), we get all these speeches and
writings about the need for patriotism, nationalism, good citizenship, good
leadership, and good governance which are heartening and spirit lifting but which
will not be of much value in defending our country or developing our economy
unless supported by high levels of technological capabilities for economic
development and national defense. Therefore, Filipino Nationalism Advanced
Technology = Technologyless Development a Poor Country + a Paper Army.
On the other hand, if we just focus on acquiring the second part (Advanced
Technology) without the guidance of the first part (Filipino Nationalism), we get
Technoliberalism and end up trapped in a vicious circle of economic and
technological laggardness and dependence that has allowed our Asian neighbors to
overtake us economically, technologically, and militarily. Therefore, Advanced
Technology Filipino Nationalism = Technoliberalism a Poor Country +
a Weak Army.
-
7/30/2019 Technonationalism and Technology Management for Building a Rich Nation and a Strong Military
29/31
29
So what our country needs in order to achieve the twin goals of a Rich
Nation and a Strong Military is the combination of Filipino Nationalism and
Advanced Technology, i.e., Technonationalism with Technology Management.
In other words, Filipino Nationalism + Advanced Technology =
Technonationalism + Technology Management Rich Nation + Strong
Military.
I dream of a future scenario in which our country will have its own thriving
defense industries that will be able to produce Filipino-designed warships, aircraft
carriers, frigates, destroyers, robotic boats, unmanned aerial vehicles, stealth
submarines, robotic minisubs, supersonic fighters, torpedoes, cruise missiles, other
missiles of various types, amphibious combat vehicles, battle tanks, new weapon
systems, cyberwarfare systems, etc. Like all of you here, I dream of a future
Philippine Navy that has the capability to defend our territories and stand up to
foreign naval bullies.
This is not an impossible dream. This can be realized in 30 years or less if we
undertake a paradigm shift from economic liberalism and technoliberalism to
economic nationalism and technonationalism and use technology management to
upgrade our technological capabilities to innovative and creative levels, to carry
out cluster-based industrialization, and to transform our country to first world
status.
Thank you very much and good day!
-
7/30/2019 Technonationalism and Technology Management for Building a Rich Nation and a Strong Military
30/31
30
REFERENCES
Asian Development Bank (2003), Asian Development Outlook 2003. Accessible
at: http://www.adb.org/Documents/Books/ADO/2003
Gapminder (2010). Accessed on January 3, 2010 at
http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=phAwcNAVuyj1jiMAkmq1iMg
Khalil, Tarek (2000),Management of Technology, Boston: McGraw-Hill, p. 10
Lee, Keun (2009). "How can Korea be a Role Model for Catch-up Development?
A Capability-Based View." Research Paper No. 2009/34, U.N. University
World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU-WIDER).
Accessed on January 9, 2010 at:
http://www.wider.unu.edu/publications/working-papers/research-papers/
2009/en_GB/rp2009-34/_files/81567730420417466/default/RP2009-34.pdf
Lee, Keun and John A. Mathews (2009). "From Washington Consensus to BeST
Consensus for World Development." Forthcoming inAsia-Pacific Economic
Literature in May 2010. Accessed on January 5, 2010 at:
http://www.managementmarketing.unimelb.edu.au/mcib/include/submitted_A
PEL_Lee_and_Mathews_aug_2009.pdf
Porter, Michael E. (1985), Competitive Advantage: Creating and Sustaining
Superior Performance, New York: The Free Press.
Posadas, Roger (2006). Technology Management and Catch-up Com-
petitiveness: What the Philippines Can Learn from South Korea and Taiwan,
Philippine Management Review , Vol 13 (2006), pp.42-69.
Posadas, Roger and Celso Roque (1994), The Philippines, in Technological
Independence: The Asian Experience (Eds.) Chamarik, S. and S. Goonatilake,
Tokyo: United Nations University Press, pp. 189-293.
Radosevic, Slavo (2009). "Policies for Promoting Technological Catch-up: A
Post Washington Approach." International Journal of Institutions and
Economics, Vol 1, No.1 April 2009 pp. 23-52. Accessed on January 7, 2010
at: http://ijie.um.edu.my/RePEC/umk/journl/v1i1/a2.pdf
-
7/30/2019 Technonationalism and Technology Management for Building a Rich Nation and a Strong Military
31/31
Salazar, Chito (1998), Global Product Chains: Northern Consumers, Southern
Producers, and Sustainability: Semiconductors from the Philippines, Paper
Prepared for the U.N. Environment Programme.
Samuels, Richard J. (1996), Rich Nation, Strong Army: National Security and
the Technological Transformation of Japan. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University
Press.
Stiglitz, Joseph (2004). "The Post Washington Consensus." Working Paper Series.
The Initiative for Policy Dialogue, Columbia University. Accessed on January
3, 2010 at
http://www0.gsb.columbia.edu/ipd/pub/Stiglitz_PWCC_English1.pdf
Villegas, Bernardo (2009). "Business Matters: How did we get to where we are?"
Philippine Daily Inquirer(September 12, 2009).
******